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Friday, January 25, 2008

Sexed Up

I'm currently reading Dawkin's God Delusion. I haven't gotten far (that might be related to the fact that I am reading at least 10 other books parralel), but according to his definition I am classified as a "sexed-up atheist", just so you know what you're at. In this spirit, here a slighly different take on geometry that is truly bizarre. YouTube informs me 'This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users', not sure exactly what since it seems to be entirely computer generated, but anyway.

For more weirdness of that sort one can do with 3D images, see Naked Geometry.

Well I suppose this is one way to get some to pay attention to geometry. I particularly liked their formation of Koch’s curve (snowflake). I was waiting for them to do something from the Mandelbrot set. I suspect it was too complex for them:-)

"among whom I turn to you with somewhat of fear and hunger and loss of it; most surely they are alone, they bite the ends of their Sabbath, appearing on the day when Allah said: O Musa! surely there will come again."

"and he begat Arphaxad five hundred ninety and five years, in the cities that were speckled and spotted among the goats: and of the heavens and the souls that came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and fat kine."

"And God said unto him, Beware thou that thou hast taken my husband?"

"And the uncircumcised man child among you has not yet joined them, that they were the isles of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet - 178 billion on average) by mass implanting.. "

My French isn't particularly good, so I can't tell whether the meaning survives. The 'tart' translates into German as 'Törtchen', which has (as far as I can tell) a nicer touch as the English 'tart', but is quite similar (promote to 'Sahnetörtchen' and 'Erdbeersahnetörtchen). Best,

"Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believesin a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them) A deist too, believes in a supernatural being, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism."

From Dawkins' website: "Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism."

Personally I'm Catholic, go to Church every week, have my kids in a Catholic school, but the Deacon who taught me religion in 8th grade was into the idea Adam and Eve could have arrived on a spaceship and I've only gotten into more weird things since. I think there are lots of more intelligent than us self-aware entities in the universe with varying degrees of physicality but none of them qualify for being deified (though they could certainly effect us). Some kind of Clifford Algebra information protospace might qualify for deification but not in the pray to it sense but more in the we eventually go home to merge with it sense.

“Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism."

Well I can’t say that any of the above applies in my case. Of course when it comes to such matters science is not truly a basis one could use to decide (not yet). No I’m not looking to stir any pots and I’m not a creationist. I just think our learned and never shy Richard Dawkins left out a few possibilities in his haste to paint as many as possible with the same brush. One of these would to speculate that perhaps when coming into being that the universe also came into being conscious (self aware). In this case one could have mindful without being willful or responsible. I wonder how Dr. Dawkins would pigeon hole this one? Incidentally I didn’t make this one up, nor do I profess to believe this to be the case. If interested, this idea can be read in the Hindu Creation Hymn, from the Rig Vega. This is sort of their Genesis only written some 3500 years ago.

I also think the odd cosmologist might be interested in this idea more then 3 millennia old.